Mars is basically Earth’s hottest club that no one can get to – but that doesn’t stop NASA from consistently releasing new footages of the red planet for everyone back at home to enjoy.
If sand dune close-ups don’t cut it for you, today you can take a virtual tour of Mars with a new 360-degree image that lets you explore around the Namib Dune. NASA says the images were taken on December 18, 2015 by the Curiosity rover, and suggest that dunes in this region “move as much as about 3 feet (1 meter) per Earth year.”
Since the rover cannot take 360-degree images, the video was stitched together from individual photos to create a spherical view. Previously, the image was released on Curiosity rover’s Facebook page with an overly stretched outcome.
Today’s video is as close as you’ll get to exploring Mars until at least 2025, with minor Photoshopping from the NASA team.
“A color adjustment has been made approximating a white balance, so that rocks and sand appear approximately as they would appear under Earth’s sunlit sky. A brightness adjustment accommodates including rover hardware in the scene,” the team writes in a press release.
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Spoiler alert: no Mark Watney cameos here.
➤ Take a virtual tour of Mars with this new 360-degree image from NASA [The Verge]
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